Close beside her, with an eager round face and untidy hair escaping from a hair net, was a woman of about the same age whom Craddock had no difficulty in recognizing as the “Dora Bunner—companion” of Constable Legg’s notes—to which the latter had added an off-the-record commentary of “Scatty!”
Miss Blacklock spoke in a pleasant well-bred voice.
“Good morning, Inspector Craddock. This is my friend, Miss Bunner, who helps me run the house. Won’t you sit down? You won’t smoke, I suppose?”
“Not on duty, I’m afraid, Miss Blacklock.”
“What a shame!”
Craddock’s eyes took in the room with a quick, practised glance. Typical Victorian double drawing room. Two long windows in this room, built-out bay window in the other … chairs … sofa … centre table with a big bowl of chrysanthemums—another bowl in window—all fresh and pleasant without much originality. The only incongruous note was a small silver vase with dead violets in it on a table near the archway into the further room. Since he could not imagine Miss Blacklock tolerating dead flowers in a room, he imagined it to be the only indication that something out of the way had occurred to distract the routine of a well-run household.
He said:
“I take it, Miss Blacklock, that this is the room in which the—incident occurred?”
“Yes.”
“And you should have seen it last night,” Miss Bunner exclaimed. “Such a mess. Two little tables knocked over, and the leg off one—people barging about in the dark—and someone put down a lighted cigarette and burnt one of the best bits of furniture. People—young people especially—are so careless about these things … Luckily none of the china got broken—”
Miss Blacklock interrupted gently but firmly:
“Dora, all these things, vexatious as they may be, are only trifles. It will be best, I think, if we just answer Inspector Craddock’s questions.”
“Thank you, Miss Blacklock. I shall come to what happened last night, presently. First of all I want you to tell me when you first saw the dead man—Rudi Scherz.”
“Rudi Scherz?” Miss Blacklock looked slightly surprised. “Is that his name? Somehow, I thought … Oh, well, it doesn’t matter. My first encounter with him was when I was in Medenham Spa for a day’s shopping about—let me see, about three weeks ago. We—Miss Bunner and I—were having lunch at the Royal Spa Hotel. As we were just leaving after lunch, I heard my name spoken. It was this young man. He said: ‘It is Miss Blacklock, is it not?’ And went on to say that perhaps I did not remember him, but that he was the son of the proprietor of the Hotel des Alpes at Montreux where my sister and I had stayed for nearly a year during the war.”
“The Hotel des Alpes, Montreux,” noted Craddock. “And did you remember him, Miss Blacklock?”
“No, I didn’t. Actually I had no recollection of ever having seen him before. These boys at hotel reception desks all look exactly alike. We had had a very pleasant time at Montreux and the proprietor there had been extremely obliging, so I tried to be as civil as possible and said I hoped he was enjoying being in England, and he said, yes, that his father had sent him over for six months to learn the hotel business. It all seemed quite natural.”
“And your next encounter?”
“About—yes, it must have been ten days ago, he suddenly turned up here. I was very surprised to see him. He apologized for troubling me, but said I was the only person he knew in England. He told me that he urgently needed money to return to Switzerland as his mother was dangerously ill.”
“But Letty didn’t give it to him,” Miss Bunner put in breathlessly.
“It was a thoroughly fishy story,” said Miss Blacklock, with vigour. “I made up my mind that he was definitely a wrong ’un. That story about wanting the money to return to Switzerland was nonsense. His father could easily have wired for arrangements to have been made in this country. These hotel people are all in with each other. I suspected that he’d been embezzling money or something of that kind.” She paused and said dryly: “In case you think I’m hardhearted, I was secretary for many years to a big financier and one becomes wary about appeals for money. I know simply all the hard-luck stories there are.
“The only thing that did surprise me,” she added thoughtfully, “was that he gave in so easily. He went away at once without any more argument. It’s as though he had never expected to get the money.”
“Do you think now, looking back on it, that his coming was really by way of a pretext to spy out the land?”
Miss Blacklock nodded her head vigorously.
“That’s exactly what I do think—now. He made certain remarks as I let him out—about the rooms. He said, ‘You have a very nice dining room’ (which of course it isn’t—it’s a horrid dark little room) just as an excuse to look inside. And then he sprang forward and unfastened the front door, said, ‘Let me.’ I think now he wanted to have a look at the fastening. Actually, like most people round here, we never lock the front door until it gets dark. Anyone could walk in.”
“And the side door? There is a side door to the garden, I understand?”
“Yes. I went out through it to shut up the ducks not long before the people arrived.”
“Was it locked when you went out?”
Miss Blacklock frowned.
“I can’t remember … I think so. I certainly locked it when I came in.”
“That would be about quarter past six?”
“Somewhere about then.”
“And the front door?”
“That’s not usually locked until later.”
“Then Scherz could have walked in quite easily that way. Or he could have slipped in whilst you were out shutting up the ducks. He’d already spied out the lie of the land and had probably noted various places of concealment—cupboards, etc. Yes, that all seems quite clear.”
“I beg your pardon, it isn’t at all clear,” said Miss Blacklock. “Why on earth should anyone take all that elaborate trouble to come and burgle this house and stage that silly sort of hold-up?”
“Do you keep much money in the house, Miss Blacklock?”
“About five pounds in that desk there, and perhaps a pound or two in my purse.”
“Jewellery?”
“A couple of rings and brooches, and the cameos I’m wearing. You must agree with me, Inspector, that the whole thing’s absurd.”
“It wasn’t burglary at all,” cried Miss Bunner. “I’ve told you so, Letty, all along. It was revenge! Because you wouldn’t give him that money! He deliberately shot at you—twice.”
“Ah,” said Craddock. “We’ll come now to last night. What happened exactly, Miss Blacklock? Tell me in your own words as nearly as you can remember.”
Miss Blacklock reflected a moment.
“The clock struck,” she said. “The one on the mantelpiece. I remember saying that if anything were going to happen it would have to happen soon. And then the clock struck. We all listened to it without saying anything. It chimes, you know. It chimed the two quarters and then, quite suddenly, the lights went out.”
“What lights were on?”
“The wall brackets in here and the further room. The standard lamp and the two small reading lamps weren’t on.”
“Was there a flash first, or a noise when the lights went out?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I’m sure there was a flash,” said Dora Bunner. “And a cracking noise. Dangerous!”
“And then, Miss Blacklock?”
“The door opened—”
“Which door? There are two in the room.”
“Oh, this door in here. The one in the other room doesn’t open. It’s a dummy. The door opened and there he was—a masked man with a revolver. It just seemed too fantastic for words, but of course at the time I just thought it was a silly joke. He said something—I forget what—”
“Hands up or I shoot!” supplied Miss Bunner, dramatically.
“Something like that,” said Miss Blac
klock, rather doubtfully.
“And you all put your hands up?”
“Oh, yes,” said Miss Bunner. “We all did. I mean, it was part of it.”
“I didn’t,” said Miss Blacklock crisply. “It seemed so utterly silly. And I was annoyed by the whole thing.”
“And then?”
“The flashlight was right in my eyes. It dazzled me. And then, quite incredibly, I heard a bullet whizz past me and hit the wall by my head. Somebody shrieked and then I felt a burning pain in my ear and heard the second report.”
“It was terrifying,” put in Miss Bunner.
“And what happened next, Miss Blacklock?”
“It’s difficult to say—I was so staggered by the pain and the surprise. The—the figure turned away and seemed to stumble and then there was another shot and his torch went out and everybody began pushing and calling out. All banging into each other.”
“Where were you standing, Miss Blacklock?”
“She was over by the table. She’d got that vase of violets in her hand,” said Miss Bunner breathlessly.
“I was over here.” Miss Blacklock went over to the small table by the archway. “Actually it was the cigarette box I’d got in my hand.”
Inspector Craddock examined the wall behind her. The two bullet holes showed plainly. The bullets themselves had been extracted and had been sent for comparison with the revolver.
He said quietly:
“You had a very near escape, Miss Blacklock.”
“He did shoot at her,” said Miss Bunner. “Deliberately at her! I saw him. He turned the flash round on everybody until he found her and then he held it right at her and just fired at her. He meant to kill you, Letty.”
“Dora dear, you’ve just got that into your head from mulling the whole thing over and over.”
“He shot at you,” repeated Dora stubbornly. “He meant to shoot you and when he’d missed, he shot himself. I’m certain that’s the way it was!”
“I don’t think he meant to shoot himself for a minute,” said Miss Blacklock. “He wasn’t the kind of man who shoots himself.”
“You tell me, Miss Blacklock, that until the revolver was fired you thought the whole business was a joke?”
“Naturally. What else could I think it was?”
“Who do you think was the author of this joke?”
“You thought Patrick had done it at first,” Dora Bunner reminded her.
“Patrick?” asked the Inspector sharply.
“My young cousin, Patrick Simmons,” Miss Blacklock continued sharply, annoyed with her friend. “It did occur to me when I saw this advertisement that it might be some attempt at humour on his part, but he denied it absolutely.”
“And then you were worried, Letty,” said Miss Bunner. “You were worried, although you pretended not to be. And you were quite right to be worried. It said a murder is announced—and it was announced—your murder! And if the man hadn’t missed, you would have been murdered. And then where should we all be?”
Dora Bunner was trembling as she spoke. Her face was puckered up and she looked as though she were going to cry.
Miss Blacklock patted her on the shoulder.
“It’s all right, Dora dear—don’t get excited. It’s so bad for you. Everything’s quite all right. We’ve had a nasty experience, but it’s over now.” She added, “You must pull yourself together for my sake, Dora. I rely on you, you know, to keep the house going. Isn’t it the day for the laundry to come?”
“Oh, dear me, Letty, how fortunate you reminded me! I wonder if they’ll return that missing pillowcase. I must make a note in the book about it. I’ll go and see to it at once.”
“And take those violets away,” said Miss Blacklock. “There’s nothing I hate more than dead flowers.”
“What a pity. I picked them fresh yesterday. They haven’t lasted at all—oh, dear, I must have forgotten to put any water in the vase. Fancy that! I’m always forgetting things. Now I must go and see about the laundry. They might be here any moment.”
She bustled away, looking quite happy again.
“She’s not very strong,” said Miss Blacklock, “and excitements are bad for her. Is there anything more you want to know, Inspector?”
“I just want to know exactly how many people make up your household here and something about them.”
“Yes, well in addition to myself and Dora Bunner, I have two young cousins living here at present, Patrick and Julia Simmons.”
“Cousins? Not a nephew and niece?”
“No. They call me Aunt Letty, but actually they are distant cousins. Their mother was my second cousin.”
“Have they always made their home with you?”
“Oh, dear no, only for the last two months. They lived in the South of France before the war. Patrick went into the Navy and Julia, I believe, was in one of the Ministries. She was at Llandudno. When the war was over their mother wrote and asked me if they could possibly come to me as paying guests—Julia is training as a dispenser in Milchester General Hospital, Patrick is studying for an engineering degree at Milchester University. Milchester, as you know, is only fifty minutes by bus, and I was very glad to have them here. This house is really too large for me. They pay a small sum for board and lodging and it all works out very well.” She added with a smile, “I like having somebody young about the place.”
“Then there is a Mrs. Haymes, I believe?”
“Yes. She works as an assistant gardener at Dayas Hall, Mrs. Lucas’s place. The cottage there is occupied by the old gardener and his wife and Mrs. Lucas asked if I could billet her here. She’s a very nice girl. Her husband was killed in Italy, and she has a boy of eight who is at a prep school and whom I have arranged to have here in the holidays.”
“And by way of domestic help?”
“A jobbing gardener comes in on Tuesdays and Fridays. A Mrs. Huggins from the village comes up five mornings a week and I have a foreign refugee with a most unpronouncable name as a kind of lady cook help. You will find Mitzi rather difficult, I’m afraid. She has a kind of persecution mania.”
Craddock nodded. He was conscious in his own mind of yet another of Constable Legg’s invaluable commentaries. Having appended the word “Scatty” to Dora Bunner, and “All right” to Letitia Blacklock, he had embellished Mitzi’s record with the one word “Liar.”
As though she had read his mind Miss Blacklock said:
“Please don’t be too prejudiced against the poor thing because she’s a liar. I do really believe that, like so many liars, there is a real substratum of truth behind her lies. I mean that though, to take an instance, her atrocity stories have grown and grown until every kind of unpleasant story that has ever appeared in print has happened to her or her relations personally, she did have a bad shock initially and did see one, at least, of her relations killed. I think a lot of these displaced persons feel, perhaps justly, that their claim to our notice and sympathy lies in their atrocity value and so they exaggerate and invent.”
She added: “Quite frankly, Mitzi is a maddening person. She exasperates and infuriates us all, she is suspicious and sulky, is perpetually having ‘feelings’ and thinking herself insulted. But in spite of it all, I really am sorry for her.” She smiled. “And also, when she wants to, she can cook very nicely.”
“I’ll try not to ruffle her more than I can help,” said Craddock soothingly. “Was that Miss Julia Simmons who opened the door to me?”
“Yes. Would you like to see her now? Patrick has gone out. Phillipa Haymes you will find working at Dayas Hall.”
“Thank you, Miss Blacklock. I’d like to see Miss Simmons now if I may.”
Six
JULIA, MITZI AND PATRICK
I
Julia, when she came into the room, and sat down in the chair vacated by Letitia Blacklock, had an air of composure that Craddock for some reason found annoying. She fixed a limpid gaze on him and waited for his questions.
Miss Blacklock had tactfully
left the room.
“Please tell me about last night, Miss Simmons.”
“Last night?” murmured Julia with a blank stare. “Oh, we all slept like logs. Reaction, I suppose.”
“I mean last night from six o’clock onwards.”
“Oh, I see. Well, a lot of tiresome people came—”
“They were?”
She gave him another limpid stare.
“Don’t you know all this already?”
“I’m asking the questions, Miss Simmons,” said Craddock pleasantly.
“My mistake. I always find repetitions so dreary. Apparently you don’t … Well, there was Colonel and Mrs. Easterbrook, Miss Hinchcliffe and Miss Murgatroyd, Mrs. Swettenham and Edmund Swettenham, and Mrs. Harmon, the Vicar’s wife. They arrived in that order. And if you want to know what they said—they all said the same thing in turn. ‘I see you’ve got your central heating on’ and ‘What lovely chrysanthemums!’”
Craddock bit his lip. The mimicry was good.
“The exception was Mrs. Harmon. She’s rather a pet. She came in with her hat falling off and her shoelaces untied and she asked straight out when the murder was going to happen. It embarrassed everybody because they’d all been pretending they’d dropped in by chance. Aunt Letty said in her dry way that it was due to happen quite soon. And then that clock chimed and just as it finished, the lights went out, the door was flung open and a masked figure said, ‘Stick ’em up, guys,’ or something like that. It was exactly like a bad film. Really quite ridiculous. And then he fired two shots at Aunt Letty and suddenly it wasn’t ridiculous any more.”
“Where was everybody when this happened?”
“When the lights went out? Well, just standing about, you know. Mrs. Harmon was sitting on the sofa—Hinch (that’s Miss Hinchcliffe) had taken up a manly stance in front of the fireplace.”
“You were all in this room, or the far room?”